Before Congress, Trump focused his anger on North Korea and Iran

Ⓒ POOL/AFP – Win McNamee – | US President Donald Trump applauds in his speech on the State of the Union before the House of Representatives of Congress in Washington on January 30, 2018

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, used the most important speech in this first year of government to warn about the nuclear power of North Korea, amid fears about the possibility of an armed conflict.

In recent weeks, US officials have already paved the way for a change of strategy in relation to a world of stronger competition with powers such as Russia and China.

In his speech on the state of the Union, Trump said that China and Russia “threaten our interests, our economy and our values”, but he kept the harshest words for North Korea and Iran.

“North Korea’s irresponsible search for nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our land,” the president said, suggesting that he has a shrinking window to respond to that situation.

“We are engaged in a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent this from ever happening,” he said.

The president made the remarks after a respected expert on issues on the Korean peninsula targeted as the future US ambassador to Seoul, Victor Cha, announced that he was abandoning his aspiration not to agree with the idea of ​​a preemptive strike on Pyongyang.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Minister Jim Mattis have pushed forward a diplomatic strategy to convince North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to negotiate an abandonment of his pursuit of nuclear weapons.

But other government figures seem to support the idea of ​​a surprise attack to damage North Korea’s nuclear sector and show that the United States is willing to act, hoping to avoid a major conflict.

Cha wrote in The Washington Post that he was giving up the ambition to become an ambassador in Seoul because he considered that “an attack – even an enormous one – will hardly delay the nuclear and missile construction programs, which are buried in unknown places, impenetrable to bombs. specials “.

– Complacency and concessions –

“An attack would not eliminate the threat of proliferation and on the contrary it would boost it,” he added, to suggest that North Korea could try to pass nuclear weapons to “bad actors” for money or revenge.

Cha also pointed out that millions of South Koreans and tens of thousands of Americans and troops would be at immediate risk of a North Korean counterattack.

“The president could put at risk a US population the size of an average city,” he warned.

In his speech before Congress, Trump suggested that he is not in the mood for agreements without results.

“Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only generate aggression and provocation,” he said.

For the president, “it is only necessary to contemplate the depraved nature of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it represents for the United States and our allies.”

Trump also raised the tone of his criticism of Iran by expressing his government’s support for recent protests in the streets of Tehran.

The president again compared himself to his predecessor, Barack Obama, by suggesting that it was a mistake not to have supported the so-called “Green Revolution” of Iran in 2009.

“When the people of Iran rose up against the crimes of their corrupt dictatorship, I have not remained silent,” he said.

The United States, the president said, “stands with the people of Iran in their brave struggle for freedom.”